Angry DevOps

For: engineers who like to get creative

Things to do: here, you can participate in a creative engineering challenge or watch others complete non-trivial tasks. The goal? Use everyday materials to create a trebuchet and a protective case – all to deliver an egg from point A to point B. The team whose egg will fly farther and stay intact will be the winner. The jury will also assess each team’s creativity and assembly. You can register for the competition in advance or join it at the event.

More than foosball

For: fans of sports and innovation

Things to do: at IFD, visitors will get to enjoy a game of table football, but life-sized! Attached to a special pole, the human players will only be able to move left and right – just like the figurines in the actual game. The goal remains the same: to get the ball into the opponents’ net. Teams from Alfa-Bank, Okko, Yandex.Education, OBIT and ITMO will play to win the cup. The semi-finals and finals will be narrated by the renowned sports commentator, Okko’s editor-in-chief Vladimir Stognienko.

Lectures by special guests

For: lifelong learners

Things to do: the festival’s special guests will offer fresh perspectives on science, healthcare, and the inner workings of big tech. For example, Natalya Smelkova, the regional director and head of Moscow campus at Sberbank’s School 21, will share the secrets of bringing up a teenager in the world of anxiety and ambition. Endocrinologist Evgenia Sokolova will explain if weight loss medications work or if their popularity is a result of successful marketing. Andrey Sebrant, Yandex’s strategic development director, and Ksenia Burzhskaya, an AI-evangelist working on Yandex Alice, will hold a discussion on the topic Creativity and AI: Allies or Enemies. Employees of Yandex, Sberbank, and Alfa-Bank will show what life is really like at a major corporation, while Maria Pazi, N+1 editor, research associate at Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry and associate professor at ITMO, will explain why it’s important to joke about science.

​​PowerPoint Party

For: everyone interested in ITMO’s behind-the-scenes

Things to do: in the dedicated Lectorium zone, staff members of the university’s Press Ofice and Staff Support Office, the teams of ITMO.Megabattle and Megabyte Media, and the university’s PhD students will speak in detail about their work, PowerPoint Party style – informally and with jokes. Several ITMO departments have been preparing their presentations under the guidance of a coach from ITMO.Punchline, the university’s stand-up comedy club, so expect lots of laughs. If you’ve never seen how department heads and professors joke, come and root for your lecturers and colleagues!

Join ITMO!

For: aspiring ITMO students

Things to do: at the festival, you can also submit your application, get your hands on some ITMO merch, and ask any questions you’ve got about our Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD programs. Applicants can take a virtual tour of the university’s labs, coworking spaces, and engineering workshops, get career guidance from a special ITMO-developed algorithm, and learn about ITMO’s recent projects from its PhD students.

Alumni club

For: anyone planning their dream career

Things to do: what’s the best way to learn about a university? By speaking to its graduates! ITMO alumni will share their experience on how to build a career at a corporation or launch a startup, as well as comment on the typical beginner’s mistakes. At a live podcast recording, expect to hear short project pitches, analyses of career and business cases, and lots of discussions. You can also sign up for an individual career guidance session.

This year, ITMO Family Day will once again coincide with the graduation ceremony. Throughout the event, this year’s Bachelor’s and Master’s graduates will be receiving their diplomas at two dedicated stages. The best graduates will receive their diplomas from the Rector himself! 

What else: relax and dump your worries into a giant shredder. 

At ITMO Family Day, you will also get a chance to chill out at a giant antistress pool, get a reading from the digital fortune teller ITMO 2150, and create your own meme at the meme-booth. And if you really want to blow off some steam, be sure to stop by the cycle-shredder area – we are sure it will be most popular! Just write what worries you on a card and throw it into the device. The faster you cycle, the faster your worries will go away – and you’ll also get a sticker with tips for effective communications. Naturally, there’ll also be interactive zones from the festival's partners: Sberbank, Alfa-Bank and Yandex.Education – so that you can get the most of it!

How to get there

The event will take place on the shore of the Gulf of Finland at the 300th Anniversary Park. You can check the event’s program in detail here (in Russian). Don’t forget to register for the festival – everyone is welcome! Just get your free ticket and show it at the entrance.